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I was relieved to see that "Lincoln" was not produced by Oliver Stone. God only knows what would have been in a movie directed by Stone, but whatever it would have been, it would not have been the truth.

So what was true about the movie, and what untrue?

Here's a partial truth:
In the movie, Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, is played by Tommy Lee Jones. It is shown, but never said that his wife was black. Was she?

No. Not really. In the first place, Stevens never married. There was, however, a housekeeper who had one black parent, and who stayed beside Stevens all his life. She even inherited his money and was regarded by neighbors as his wife. Her name was Lydia Hamilton Smith, and when writing her, Stevens called her Mrs. Smith, as she had once been married to a Mr Smith.
She is described as "a comely quadroon with Caucasian features and a skin of light-gold tint, a Roman Catholic communicant with Irish eyes ... quiet, discreet, retiring, reputed for poise and personal dignity."

Not exactly the way it was portrayed in the movie, is it? But, of course they didn't really lie!

So we've got some real Lincoln bashers around here. Speak up, Bashers! What is untrue about the movie?

"While Smith was private about her personal life, during her time with Stevens, neighbors considered her his common law wife,[7] and she was frequently called "Mrs. Stevens" by people who knew her."

I call bullshit. Stevens died in 1868. It is impossible to imagine that the people of Gettysburg would consider her his common law wife. This shows a typical misunderstanding of the term "common law wife". Living conjugally with a woman to whom you are not married was "living in sin", it was not "common law wife". A common law spouse arrangement is when two people who can be married and intend to be married HOLD FORTH TO THE COMMUNITY as married until priest or official can arrive to seal the deal. Moreover, while Pennsylvania repealed its miscegenation law in 1780, society did not accept miscegenation especially in small towns. There are reports of interracial couples in Philadelphia, being Mecca of sorts for that, because the Quakers protected them. That doesn't mean that "nice people" accepted or encouraged this. In Gettysburg it's highly unlikely that a respected politician would also be commonly known to be living in sin with a quadroon house servant. Having said all that, it also would not be surprising if nasty people referred to Mrs. Smith as Mrs. Stevens because as we know accusing politicians of having relations with black females was a favorite slur at the time. See Jefferson and Heming.

While you were hanging yourself , on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun